Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, who ran it for many years. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. Blue Note Records is currently owned by the EMI Group and in 2006 has been expanded to fill the function of an umbrella label group bringing together a wide variety of EMI-owned labels and imprints specialilzing in the growing market segment of music for adults (see History-Resurrection, below).

Blue Note throughout its history has principally been associated with the "hard bop" style of jazz (mixing bebop with other forms of music including soul, blues, rhythm and blues and gospel). Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan and Art Blakey were among the label's leading artists, but almost all the important musicians in postwar jazz recorded for Blue Note on occasion.